Last week, I received a notice on my Facebook page that shared that a Harvard study on fluoride found it to cause brain damage. I immediately thought: “hm. Rise in alzheimber’s/dementia. Hm. Fluoride added to water, when? and to toothpastes, when? Probably some correlation there.”

Since then I have read about the study in my online newspaper and from Jesse Cannone of “Lose the Backpain” According to Jesse’s article, there are only two benefits to having fluoride introduced: It has been found to decrease decay tendencies of teeth. But, wait, if one does it too much

Excessive exposure to fluoride actually damages the teeth, discolors them and causes them to rot from the inside out.

Yikes! That sounds a lot worse than getting a cavity or two.

The second benefit is that it is cheap. If it is put in water (which has become the norm in cities around the United States). According to Jesse’s article:

It costs about $.50 per person to fluoridate water.According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it also saves approximately $38 in dental costs per person. “An individual can have a lifetime of fluoridated water for less than the cost of one dental filling,” explains the American Dental Association (ADA).

Okay. So it is cheaper to drink lots of fluoride water than it is to get a filling put in. However, the study done at Harvard’s School of Public Health found that fluoride caused brain damage. The study done of Chinese children who were regularly exposed to fluoride in their water found that their IQs were effected adversely. Yikes again!

There is a saying that I think about often: Penny wise, pound foolish. Seems to me that this is a classic case of this saying.

However, this is not the end of the story. According to a Harvard study (Maybe the same one) a higher incidence of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) occurs in populations that drink water in which fluoride has been added.

And so Yikes a third time!

Can this really be for real? Many years ago, a mystic friend of mine shared a story about a fellow who lived above the hills of a village. One day, he went down to the village to get supplies and found that the villagers had all gone mad. With a little detective work, he learned that their wells had been poisoned with some item that was causing this madness. He went back up to his place in the hills. For months, he avoided the water. But eventually he felt so lonely and isolated that he went back down the hill and drank of the well.

Check out the ingredients in your mouthwashes and toothpastes.

Although fluoride in the water is cheaper than a filling, I think a filling is probably cheaper than chemo or replacing all your teeth.